Nash fails in smoking, alcohol and now food labelling

Mike Daube

The resignation of Assistant Health Minister Fiona Nash's chief of staff Alastair Furnival following revelations of his involvement in a company lobbying for food companies should not be the end of the story.

There are much bigger issues to pursue, especially what happens to the plans for food labelling that Nash brought to a crashing halt, and how she views her preventive health care portfolio.

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But Nash decided unilaterally the website should be taken down, so pressingly that it disappeared at 8pm on the day it went up.

She has sent the star ratings to the morgue. We will be left with the food industry's pathetically inadequate labelling, and health and consumer concerns have lost out to the powerful food lobby.

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At a time when obesity, linked with hugely promoted junk food, is probably the greatest single threat to our life expectancy, the true scandal is that a person responsible for improving the health of the nation seems to sing from the processed food industry songbook.

This is compounded by her decision to appoint a chief of staff who was, until recently, a food industry lobbyist and spokesman.

The prevention of ill health and early death is challenged by the global commercial interests representing tobacco, alcohol and obesity. Nash's record in all these areas gives cause for concern.

The Liberal Party has rejected tobacco funding, and the government has backed plain packaging and tax increases.

But Nash's National Party still accepts tobacco funding, which is a clear conflict of interest for a minister responsible for tobacco policy. Her first significant action on alcohol was to defund the respected national treatment organisation, the Alcohol and Drugs Council of Australia. Now she has scuppered a food labelling process painstakingly negotiated by people of great goodwill in her own department and supported by a national ministerial council.

Coming weeks will show if ditching a staffer is sufficient to save the person who carries ultimate responsibility, and whose parliamentary and public explanations have more holes than a one star-rated Swiss cheese.

Those concerned to reduce our huge toll from tobacco, alcohol and obesity will be looking for strong action from Nash, and evidence that she has not caved in to industry lobbying.

The World Health Organisation's director general, Margaret Chan, recently said that, beyond big tobacco, "public health must also contend with big food, big soda and big alcohol. All of these industries fear regulation, and protect themselves by using the same tactics". She added: "In the view of WHO, the formulation of health policies must be protected from distortion by commercial or vested interests."

The spotlight should remain on Nash and how she deals with obesity and alcohol, where federal government action is urgently needed to complement state initiatives, and whether she maintains support for strong national tobacco media campaigns and tackling the indigenous smoking initiative.

The Prime Minister's staff appear to have intervened creditably, following reports government protocols were breached. Those concerned for the public health will hope for similar interventions to ensure either a change of tack from Nash about prevention priorities, or see her transferred to other duties.

Mike Daube is professor of health policy at Curtin University, director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute and McCusker Centre for Action on Alcohol and Youth, and president of the Australian Council on Smoking and Health.